Swim snow and cousins

From Disney we visited the DeSoto National Memorial in Bradenton, which commemorates the 1540s Spanish exploration/exploitation expedition through the Southeast in search of El Dorado. Imagine lugging this armor through the sweltering swamps of Florida.

 Why was this sign only on the men's bathroom?

 Erin was very helpful with Tessie at the beach in Naples

The Gulf was plenty warm enough for their Northern blood

Caroline celebrated with another, tastier birthday cake

Back home, Grandma Joan gave baking lessons

and then one morning Tundra snuck into the back bathroom and promptly ate one of Grandpa Ed's pills. Fortunately, tamsulosin (generic Flomax) is not toxic, but it required a call to poison control and a trip to the emergency vet for monitoring. Just a few days earlier he had been to the emergency vet to seal a gash in his belly from Heather's attempt to snip out a matted knot. With his New Year's trip in for the abscess, that made 3 ER visits in 2 months for the big furball.

Katy, Lyla, and Charlie came up for a weekend. We revisited Boda Borg to complete more quests. This is Farm, an easy one

In Platoon, we finished 2 out of 3 rooms

In Potions we couldn't get past the 2nd room

While the girls swam at their league championships the others toured the USS Constitution

 Looks comfy, doesn't it? Lyla actually slept in the girls makeshift hammock made from a blanket tied to their bed.

 Caroline designed a quest featuring mental, physical, and eating challenges

Katy's Peace Corps friend Rajiv comp'd tickets for a gang of PCVs to see his play Guards at the Taj at a theater in Central Square

Caroline's class sang in the half-town elementary and middle schools concert

Holy wardrobe malfunction! Erin slid right out of her pants!

Skateable sidewalk ice is ultra-rare. If we had known that the ice was this good, we would have skated around the neighborhood all morning.

We cracked all 3 rooms of Spook House eventually. Here you can hear the fail buzzer because although Charlie was well hidden, the motion sensor was tripped by me and the camera getting within eyesight of the zombie baby.

Hamilton karaoke, no problem

The challenge here was to be dressed up by Caroline and complete a fashion walk without laughing

Next time we'll outlaw putting duct tape on the egg

Erin finished 8th out of 110 in the U9 freestyle league championships

Caroline's medley relay took home the silver

You can see the exact moment when Erin decided that Tessie's 5 seconds in the spotlight are enough. These two cannot play well together.

The March snow allowed for the only cross-country skiing of the year

Disney

Thanks to Mom's superb planning we visited Disney just ahead of the Northeast's school vacation week. With meals, FastPasses, and park itineraries all prearranged, we had a great time.

Animal Kingdom was our first park and Erin's favorite

 Fueling up

 for the safari

Is this imagineering or a real termite mound? 

Nice picture, Erin 

That's better 

 Ostrich eggs??

Even the animatronic goats were realistic

At least Disney acknowledges that there are hundreds of free parks in the US to see wildlife

Our room in the Polynesian villas

 was right next to the Transportation Center

and had easy access to the monorail, which everyone loved... except Erin

Epcot was Dad's favorite park 

At Hollywood Studios

Tessie got a new unicorn

named Buttercup 

Mom and Caroline rode the most thrill rides, especially at the Magic Kingdom, their favorite park and Tessie's too

Instead of riding the monorail back from MK, Erin chillaxed on the ferry boat 

Caroline relaxing between parks 

We embraced our Canadian heritage in Epcot 

 and Caroline spent her birthday at the Epcot aquarium

Now for the princess pictures to be re-shown at the girl's weddings

and now the thrill ride pictures

  

Frozen Ever After